> Eliza Carthy > Songs > Blow the Winds

The Baffled Knight / The Shepherd Lad / Blow the Winds

[ Roud 11 ; Master title: The Baffled Knight ; Child 112 ; G/D 2:301 ; Ballad Index C112 ; The Baffled Knight at Fire Draw Near ; VWML RVW2/1/11 ; Bodleian Roud 11 ; GlosTrad Roud 11 ; Wiltshire 254 ; Mudcat 64609 , 149112 ; trad.]

Gavin Greig collected The Shepherd Laddie from Mrs Gillespie of Buchan, Aberdeenshire, in 1905. In 1925 it was included in Alexander Keith’s book Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs.

Ewan MacColl sang The Shepherd Lad in 1956 on his and A.L. Lloyd’s Riverside anthology The English and Scottish Popular Ballads, Volume I. He also sang Blow Away the Morning Dew in 1958 on his and Isla Cameron’s Riverside album English and Scottish Love Songs. A.L. Lloyd noted:

Scholars call this ballad The Baffled Knight (Child #112), though often the enterprising young man is a shepherd boy or a millers lad, and no high gentleman at all. The song has often been printed, but always with words rewritten or stanzas suppressed to render it suitable for school children and concert singers. This version, in the fuller form often found in tradition, is from Cecil Sharp’s manuscript collection. MacColl is joined by Peggy Seeger in singing the refrain.

Peter Kennedy recorded Emily Bishop singing this song as The Baffled Knight in the 1950s for the BBC. This recording was included on the anthology The Child Ballads 2 (The Folk Songs of Britain Volume 5; Caedmon 1961; Topic 1968) and in 2012 on the Topic anthology Good People, Take Warning (The Voice of the People Series Volume 23).

Sam Larner of Winterton, Norfolk, sang Blow Away the Morning Dew in a recording made by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in 1958-60. It was released in 1961 on his Folkways anthology Now Is the Time for Fishing.

Cilla Fisher sang The Shepherd Lad in 1978 on her and Artie Trezise’ Kettle (UK) and Folk-Legacy (USA) album For Foul Day and Fair.

Ian Robb and Hang the Piper sang Clear Away the Morning Dew in 1979 on their Folk-Legacy album Ian Robb and Hang the Piper. Ian noted:

One of the first traditional songs I ever learned, the bulk of the text and the tune coming from The Singing Island by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger.

I have always been attracted by smart remarks in songs, and the “maid within, fool without” line is one of my favourite ambiguities.

John Campbell sang There Was a Shepherd’s Boy to Tom Munnelly in Cunningham’s guest house, Forkhill, Co Armagh, on 7 October 1984 This recording was included in 1985 on the Folk Music Society of Ireland anthology Early Ballads in Ireland 1968-1985, reissued on CD in 2015 by An Goílín.

Roy Harris sang Clear Away the Morning Dew in 1985 on his Fellside album Utter Simplicity.

Cyril Barber of Felsham, Suffolk, sang Hail the Dewy Morning on one of Veterans Songs Sung in Suffolk cassettes published in 1987/89, and on the 2000 Veteran anthology CD, Songs Sung in Suffolk

Eliza Carthy sang Blow the Winds in 1998 on her album Rice, accompanying herself on fiddle and djembe, and with Ed Boyd playing bouzouki. They followed it by Eliza’s tune The Game of Draughts. This track was reissued in 2003 on Eliza’s anthology The Definitive Collection.

Karine Polwart sang this song as Shepherd Lad in 2001 on Battlefield Band’s CD Happy Daze. Their sleeve notes commented:

This is the only song we know about skinny dipping in Scotland, a chilly and ill-advised pursuit in the best of weather! It features a twist on the common ballad tale of a nasty young man who takes advantage of a girl. In fact, the shepherd lad is far too modest for this lassie. Karine fitted the traditional words to a tune of John [McCusker]’s.

Mick Groves sang Bonnie Shepherd Lad on his 2004 album of songs of Ewan MacColl, Fellow Journeyman.

Lisa Knapp sang this song as Dew Is on the Grass in 2007 on her CD Wild & Undaunted. Her source is The Dew Is on the Grass as sung by Jake Willis of Hadleigh, Suffolk, to Ralph Vaughan Williams in September 1907; which was printed in Roy Palmer’s 1983 book Folk Songs Collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Rachael McShane sang Shepherd Lad in 2009 on her Navigator CD No Man’s Fool.

Heidi Talbot sang The Shepherd Lad in 2010 on her Navigator CD The Last Star.

Jim Mageean sang Blow Away the Morning Dew in 2012 on the anthology of songs collected from John Short by Cecil Sharp, Short Sharp Shanties Vol. 3: Sea Songs of a Watchet Sailor. The album’s notes commented:

[Richard Runciman] Terry [in The Shanty Book Part II (J. Curwen & Sons Ltd., London. 1924)] comments that although Short started his Blow Away the Morning Dew with a verse of The Baffled Knight, he then digresses into floating verses. In fact three of the verses recorded and published by Terry, not one derive from The Baffled Knight! Short sang only the “flock of geese” verse to Sharp. Sharp did not publish the shanty, but other authors also give Baffled Knight versions. The other predominant version in collections is the American whaling version but still using the tune associated with The Baffled Knight and the chorus remaining close to the usual words.

The text used here is virtually all Short via Terry — the addition being the “new-mown hay” verse which comes straight from The Baffled Knight.

Andy Turner sang this song as Stroll Away the Morning Dew as the 20 May 2012 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. He noted in his blog:

This was a song which, in [Maud Karpeles’] The Crystal Spring, is given the title of The Baffled Knight, and which Sharp collected in Warehorne on 23 September 1908 from James Beale. Even at 18 I realised, I think, that The Baffled Knight was a ballad scholar’s title, not what a traditional singer would have used (it doesn’t even mention a knight in Mr Beale’s song—it’s a shepherd’s son who is “baffled”). A few years later, when I looked at the copy of Sharp’s manuscripts in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, I found that in fact Mr Beale had also sung “Stroll away the morning dew”, rather than the more usual “Blow away the morning dew”. So that’s what I’ve sung ever since, and that’s how I refer to the song.

Steve Roud included The Baffled Knight in 2012 in The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. Lucy Ward, James Findlay, Bella Hardy and Brian Peters sang it a year later on the accompanying Fellside CD The Liberty to Choose: A Selection of Songs from The New Penguin Book of English Folk Songs.

Faustus sang Blow the Windy Morning in 2013 on their CD Broken Down Gentlemen. They noted:

From the singing of Emily Bishop on The Voice of the People collection Good People, Take Warning. Recorded by Peter Kennedy at Bromsborough Heath, Herefordshire, 13 October 1952.

Rosaleen Gregory sang The Baffled Knight in 2013 on her second album of Child ballads, Serpent’s Knee. She noted:

Another resourceful female and not-so-bright would-be rapist.

In my grandmother’s book on The Language of Flowers marigolds are said to symbolize ‘vulgar thoughts’.

Claire Hastings sang Shepherd Lad on the TMSA Young Trad Tour 2016.

You Are Wolf sang The Baffled Knight / The Shepherd Lad on her 2018 album Keld. She noted:

A traditional song in which a man comes across a woman skinny-dipping in a brook. She foxes him into taking her home but doesn’t give him what he hopes for in return. My version borrows from both Eliza Carthy’s Blow the Winds and Lisa Knapp’s Dew Is on the Grass. At some point, the knight was replaced by a shepherd, but I rather liked the earlier title.

The brook was recorded at Gramarye Cottage, County Leitrim, Ireland.

Lyrics

Jake Willis sings The Dew Is on the Grass

As I walked out one midsummer morn
All in the month of May, sir,
O there I beheld a fair pretty maid
A-making of the hay, sir.

Chorus (after each verse):
Fol de lie de lay

I boldly stepped up to her
And asked her to lay down, sir.
The answer that she gave me:
“The dew is on the ground, sir.”

“Wait till you get to my father’s house
Where you may lay me down, sir;
Where you can have my maidenhead
All on a bed of down, sir.”

O when she got to her father’s hall,
That was walled in all round, sir.
She stepped in and shut the door,
And shut the young man out, sir.

“When you met with me at first
You did not meet a fool, sir;
You may take your Bible under your arm
And go a little more to school, sir.

“And when you meet a pretty maid
Little below the town, sir;
You must not mind her squalling
Nor the rumpling of her gown, sir.

“There is a cock in my father’s yard,
He will not tread the hen, sir;
And I do think in my very heart
That you are one of them, sir.

“There is a flower in my father’s garden,
it’s called a marigold, sir,
And if you will not when you may
You shall not when you will, sir.”

Eliza Carthy sings Blow the Winds

There was a shepherd’s son,
He kept sheep on the hill.
He laid his pipe and his crook aside
And there he slept his fill.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
And blow the winds high-o, high-o
Sing blow the winds high-o

Well he looked east and he looked west,
He took another look
And there he saw a lady gay
Was dipping in a brook.

She said: “Sir, don’t touch my mantle,
Come let my clothes alone.
I will give you as much bright money
As you can carry home.”

“I will not touch your mantle,
I’ll let your clothes alone,
But I’ll take you out of the water clear
My dear to be my own.”

He mounted her on a milk white steed,
Himself upon another,
And there they rode along the road
Like sister and like brother.

And as they rode along the road
He spied some cocks of hay,
“Oh look!” he says, “there’s a lovely place
For men and maids to play.”

And when they came to her father’s house
They rang long at the ring,
And who is there but her brother
To let the young girl in.

When the gates were opened
This young girl she jumped in,
“Oh, look!” she says, “you’re a fool without
And I’m a maid within!

“There is a horse in my father’s stable,
He stands behind the thorn,
He shakes himself above the trough
But dares not pry the corn.

“There is cock in my father’s yard, A double comb he wears,
He shakes his wings and he crows full loud
But a capon’s crest he bears.

“And there is a flower in my father’s garden,
It’s called the marigold,
The fool that will not when he can,
He shall not when he would.”

Says the shepherd’s son as he doffed his shoes,
“My feet they shall run bare
And if I ever meet another girl
I’ll have that girl, beware.”

Karine Polwart sings Shepherd Lad

Once there was a shepherd lad kept sheep upon the hill
An he’s laid his pipe and crook aside and there he’s slept his fill.
He woke up on a riverbank on a fine May mornin,
And there he spied a lady swimming in the clothes that she was born in.

So he raised his head from his green bed and he approached the maid.
“Put on yer claithes, my dear,” he says, “and do not be afraid.
It’s fitter for a lady fair to sew a silken seam
Than to rise on a fine May morning and swim against the stream.”

“Well, if you’ll not touch my mantle and you’ll leave my claithes alane,
Then I’ll give you all the money, sir, that you can carry hame.”
“I’ll not touch your mantle and I’ll leave yer claithes alane,
But I’ll tak you out of the clear water, my dear, to be my ane.”

So he’s taen her oot o the clear water and he’s rowed her in his arms.
“Put on yer claithes, my dear,” he says, “and hide your bounteous charms.”
He put her on a milk white steed and himself upon another,
And it’s all along the way they rode like sister and like brother.

They rode intae her faither’s gate and she’s tirled at the pin,
And ready stood a porter there to let the fair maid in.
When the gates were opened, it’s so nimbly she stepped in.
She said, “Kind sir, you are a fool without and I’m a maid within.

“So fare thee weel, my modest boy. I thank you for your care,
But if you had done as you desired, I’d never have left you there.
I will sew no silken seam on a fine May morning.
You can bide your time till your time runs out, so take this as fair warning.”

Rachael McShane sings Shepherd Lad

Once there was a shepherd lad,
Kept sheep on yonder hill.
And he laid his pipe and crook aside
And there he slept his fill.

He looked east and he looked west,
He took another look
And there he spied a lady gay,
Swimming in a brook.

Chorus (after every other verse):
Blow the winds i-o,
Blow the winds i-o,
Clear away the morning dew
And blow the winds i-o

He raised his head from his green bed
And he approached the maid,
“Put on your clothes my dear,” he said,
“And do no be afraid,

“It’s fitter for a lady fair
To sew a silken seam
Than to rise up on a May morning
And swim against the stream.”

“If you’ll not touch my mantle
And you’ll leave my clothes alone.
Then I’ll give you as much money, sir,
As you can carry home.”

“I’ll not touch your mantle
And I’ll leave your clothes alone.
But I’ll take you out of the clear water,
My dear, to be my own.”

And when she out of the water came,
He’s took her in his arms.
“Put on your clothes, my dear,” he said,
And hide those lovely charms.”

And he’s put her on a milk white steed,
Himself upon another,
And it’s all along the way they rode
Like sister and like brother.

And as they rode along the way
He spied some bails of hay,
He said, “That is a lovely place
For men and maids to play.”

And when they came to her father’s gate
She’s tirled at the pin,
And ready stood the proud porter
To let this fair maid in.

And when the gates were open
It’s so nimbly she’s stepped in.
She said, “You are a fool without
And I’m a maid within!

“Oh so fare you well my modest boy,
I thank you for your care,
But had you done as you should do,
I’d never have left you there.”

Lisa Knapp sings Dew Is on the Grass

As I walked out one midsummer’s morn
All in in the month of May, sir,
O there I beheld a fair pretty maid
Making of the hay, sir.

Chorus (after each verse):
Fol de lie de lay

I boldly stepped up to her
Asked her to lay down, sir.
The answer that she gave to me
Was, “The dew is on the ground, sir.”

“O but if you come to my father’s house
You may lay in my bed, sir;
You can have my maidenhead
All on a bed of down, sir.”

But when we got to her father’s house,
It was walled in all around, sir.
And she ran in and shut the gate,
Shut the young man out, sir.

“O when you met with me at first
You did not meet a fool, sir;
Take your Bible under your arm,
Go a little more to school, sir.

“And if you meet a pretty girl
A little below the town, sir;
You must not mind her squalling
Or the rumpling of your gown, sir.

“There is a cock in my father’s garden
Will not tread the hen, sir;
And I do think in my very heart
That you are one of them, sir.

“There is a flower in my father’s garden
Called a marigold, sir,
And if you will not when you may
You shall not when you would, sir.”

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of Eliza Carthy by Garry Gillard.